


i'm willing to wait for it

by oonabashed



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Romance, budding realizations, help me, i drowned in feelings a little too much, lowest emotional iq on the falconers line up but boy does he make up for it with gameplay, update 2x19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonabashed/pseuds/oonabashed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His dad is talking about listening to his heart, and Jack thinks it isn't the listening that's so much the problem, it's the knowing what to do about it that's difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm willing to wait for it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nomette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomette/gifts).



> Fair warning this is the first fic I've ever written (no really) and it is also un-beta'ed. Criticism, advice, and any outcry of emotion welcome. Thanks to eclecticat for introducing me to the sort by kudos feature, lol. This one's 100% for you.

It's happened like this a few times. Jack keeps finding himself after the moment, suddenly seeing with forceful clarity how all of his choices have led him away from what he thought he was moving towards. It happened a few hours after he woke up at the hospital, when he saw how the obsession- with Kent, with hockey, with being Normal- had brought him to a psych ward instead of the NHL draft. It happened when Kent won the Stanley, showed up with it at the Haus and Jack suddenly realized his stubborn silence meant to make Kent apologize had actually been about growing away from Parse, not having a reason to snap back to him. And now, on graduation day after he's said goodbye kindly and cleanly, Jack sees how all his careful considerations, his honest concern have made Bitty unhappy. Have made Jack unhappy. 

His dad is talking about listening to his heart, and Jack thinks it isn't the listening that's so much the problem, it's the knowing what to do about it that's difficult. He's been careless with himself, with others before. He didn't want to do that again. 

Jack takes off at a jog (look, running feels awkward compared to the glide and grind of skates) and he thinks about how he didn't know. Not really. Feelings of fondness haven't been unusual for Jack, not since he came to Samwell. Shitty won a flood of it by the end of their first week on the team when Jack was wound so tight from the sheer idea of being on ice competitively again that he'd frightened everyone else into keeping away from him. Shitty just... stayed himself. Johnson had that strange goalie affect, and even though his questions often made Jack's head hurt, his advice was always great. One night Jack responded to a particularly jarring bout of existential crisis with a sentence he thought up himself. "It's all subjective, Johnson, so it mostly matters because we think it does. I think." Johnson had looked him straight in the eye and said it was the most evolved thing he'd ever heard anyone say. Fondness. Affection. Just because Bitty prompted it more often than most others didn't mean anything. Jack just thought he was getting better. Better at caring. Better at noticing. Better at seeing people for who they really were, himself included. 

He stops for a moment just outside the house, a moment to catch his breath, catch himself. He counts his breaths, and he thinks very hard. With Parse he always knew what he wanted. Or at least, he always knew how he wanted it. He was never just friends with Kent. Not for a second. But it isn't a bad thing, Jack tells himself, it isn't a bad thing that he took the time to know Bittle. And what he feels now isn't wrapped up in anything else. No, that's not right. It is wrapped up in things, but it's not hockey and it's not his self worth, it's wrapped up in who Bittle is. His warmth and his pies and his smile and the fondness. The affection. Maybe this is how it's supposed to be. Jack hopes so. He can't think about it anymore, doesn't actually have his breath back but he can't take the chance of letting this slip away. Clarity doesn't come to him very often. He takes the steps two at a time.

"Bittle!"

He's not there. Jack is still for a moment. Eric's duffel bag is still here, he hasn't left on the shuttle yet. Over the sound of his own lungs he hears the tinny pitch of Beyonce- it's that song Bitty sings in the shower all the time- and he turns around, starts at Bitty's place in his room (Chowder's room) and of course Bittle's folding Chowder's shirts. Of course he is. 

Jack walks over and Bitty turns with a start, and Jack's own throat tightens as he realizes Bitty was crying. Jack thinks about saying something as Bitty chatters, his own tears abandoned in concern for why Jack is standing there in the state he's in. And God, Jack can't think of anything to say, can barely force Eric's name past the lump in his throat. 

"Bitty."

They both still. Jack's been feeling the weight of this moment for fifteen minutes straight, but Eric's just getting clued in. Jack waits until he thinks he sees the realization stirring in Bitty's face before he tilts down, hands making sure it doesn't make sense to lean away from this and kisses him. Jack just realized the extent of what he wanted a few minutes ago, but it still feels like a _finally_ , even more so when Bitty rests his palms lightly but surely on Jack's chest, on his hip. 

He's still out of breath so he pulls back a touch, enough that he isn't gasping against Bitty's mouth, and Jack can't help but open his eyes as he does to watch Bitty hang in this moment, waiting for Jack to come back to him. He falls back into Bitty without a beat of hesitation, stays with him until his phone buzzes, insistently, twice.

"That's... uh. That's my phone. I should-"

He needs Bittle to know that he doesn't want to be this far away, that four inches is too damn far. When Jack pulls his eyes away to look at the texts, it's Georgia reminding him there's a meeting scheduled in Providence that night. Then his father reminding him that its a bad idea to keep the assistant manager for your new team waiting. Jack pushes aside the thought that it's a bad idea to keep the boy you're in love with waiting too. It's too much. Jack can think about that later. 

"...I gotta go." Bittle's staring at Jack's chest, eyes wide like he's stunned at this moment, and Jack chides himself again. How long has Eric been waiting, he wonders? A question for another time. Jack needs to get better at seeing this part of Bittle now that they're... now that they're. He'll have to think about what they're doing later too. He needs to step away, but Bittle's face is watching him so earnestly that Jack feels like a puzzle, and he needs Bitty to know that there's no confusion in this picture, that everything he's done is clear and honest. 

Jacks no good at words. He steps back to give Eric one more kiss, and instead of sitting on the cusp of his lips Bittle surges into Jack's mouth, stretched tall and Jack almost smiles. There. No confusion. 

When he pulls away he does it all at once. He doesn't want to, but he has to, and Jack belongs to the school of ripping the bandaid off when it occurs to him that there's a bandaid in the first place. 

He has things to say but he feels them rattling around in his brain all jumbled up and poorly conceived. Waiting this long was the first mistake, but he's not going to say the wrong thing. He won't. He refuses. 

"I'll text you."

Jack's come to appreciate being able to compose his words. And it's Bittle. Jack has to get used to this if he's going to be with Bittle. Jack is already halfway down the stairs when he smiles, tucks his happiness into the corner of his mouth. He walks out the front door and pulls out his phone. 

**I said goodbye and I didn't want to. Sorry it took me so long Bitty.**

Jack composes a few more texts, considers a chirp about protein, wonders if he should see when Bittle would like to visit, wonders with a start if he has to tell George about all this. Later, he tells himself firmly. All of this comes later, when he and Bittle had told each other everything they want to. When he's sure he's going the right way this time, or at least, when he's walking somewhere with Bitty right beside him.

**Author's Note:**

> uh follow me on tumblr (oonabashed.tumblr.com) for really bad humor omgcp! fangirling and hamilton feels.


End file.
